


And we could feel, (none of it)

by GibbousLunation



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Romance, Some Humor, please ignore the quote referenced from a series that rhymes with shmarvel, time for the author to do a whole lot of self projecting am i right fellas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 20:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GibbousLunation/pseuds/GibbousLunation
Summary: “Were you aware that I’m the only angel in all of the years since Earth’s beginning, who has never lost a corporation? I know you have, and I’ve heard about the paperwork of course, but I’ve not filled it out myself, even once. It’s entirely because you’ve never let me.”Crowley looked away sharply and took a quick drink. “You’d be insufferable to deal with afterwards, and who knows if they’d have sent you back at all with all that nonsense Gabriel’s always on about. Bugger that he is, should send him a nice fruit basket for leaving you alone, really. Nice, as in filled entirely with rats.”Aziraphale touched his shoulder. “Crowley."The demon flinched away, pulling his legs back. Aziraphale could practically see the walls forming and panicked. “I’ve never had anyone else, you know, rescue me. It’s only that I’m wondering how you always find me when I need you.”Crowley looked strangely hurt by the words, a quiet sort of devastation creeping around his lips. “Of course I find you. You call for me, and you needed me, so I came.”





	And we could feel, (none of it)

Aziraphale had never really questioned it, strangely. Crowley would swoop in out of nowhere, rescuing him from some ill found danger and they’d part ways amicably (or unfortunately unamicable, on the initial holy water occasion) until time and location brought them together once again.

It had started likely around the time of the medieval times and the knight business, or perhaps before, really. Maybe from the very beginning, in all actuality.

He’d been coerced into a bout of jousting, rather unceremoniously, as a way to prove his merit before obtaining audience with the king. Aziraphale, famously (or infamously depending on who you asked) didn’t do well with actual violence. He’d seen some of the residual fall out from prior tournaments, and the splinters had been enough to ward him away from the enticement of an invite.

Entirely different sensation being the actual splinter_ giver_, as it were.

He had been a warrior, for a time. Granted the honour of the flaming sword position for his outstanding work in the rebellion (he’d guarded a hallway very seriously and then filled out paperwork, the flaming sword for all its prestige had been more or less a very pompous participation award), training on swordsmanship all completed neatly, but he’d never had occasion to…. Well, _stab_ anyone. Missing a large portion of the completed check box towards the ‘slicing’ part of swords as a whole. Was terribly unsure if he could, physically or morally speaking.

Luckily, (or unluckily depending on whose perspective you sought) he hadn’t needed to fret.

Sitting astride his horse, as he was shockingly quite adept with animals of all sorts (particularly horses who enjoyed calm instructions and sensible outlines of paths, he’d once given a diagram of the landscape they were traversing to his steed and had found it to be quite successful), he’d thought to himself _‘well, surely there must be a way out of this where we’d both keep our limbs nicely unpunctured’._ The opposing knight dropped his mask, a heavy looking thing with unnecessary points that did nothing for his overall fashion, if you asked Aziraphale (which no one ever seemed to). The crowd geared up for the battle, the announcers from each party took their stand, and suddenly a familiar flash of red hair caught his eye. Crowley, the old serpent himself, was pacing up to the fellow in charge of the whole thing and whispering in his ear.

“Hold!” The gentleman cried, stopping the building cheer with an abrupt lurch of confused silence. “Knight Fell, forgive us.”

“Erm, quite alright!” Aziraphale shouted back uncertainly. His horse paced nervously.

The young sir whispered into another’s ears, and he another, until suddenly, the knight across the way from him was lifting his mask with nearly comically wide eyes. “My lord! If I’d known you were- forgive me! I forfeit!”

_All in all,_ Aziraphale thought primly. _Rather dramatic._ Crowley looked at him over his glasses, a Look he’d become unfortunately accustomed to that read insurmountable levels of smugness. He frowned behind his helmet.

“Um, yes. Well. It’s fine! Quite alright, in fact!” The other knight visibly relaxed, the crowd seemed quite put out over the whole thing, and neither of them had needed to deal with any splinters in any unfortunate places. Of course, later he’d cornered Crowley in the pub and had the whole situation strung out for him. He’d been planning on giving the demon a Talking To about lying or interfering or so on, but Crowley had only smiled at him with that very small lip quirk way of his.

“Not a lie, angel. You happen to have a reputation is all.” That, he found out, had meant that Crowley had been building Aziraphale up to be a great hero over the past few years.

“To make myself seem more intimidating, of course. Being your mortal enemy carries a good amount of merit now that I’m happy to throw around.”

Aziraphale could not have been more exasperated if he’d created the sensation himself, which sometimes he thought he might have. “That doesn’t explain at all why you’re _here_. Or why you stopped the duel in the first place!”

Crowley pouted, and took a long sip of his drink. He’d adamantly refuse to admit to anything like a pout if he was asked, of course. Aziraphale may have also invented the eye roll at that exact moment as well. Angel with the flaming sword, guardian of the eastern gate, principality, and the Most Exasperated Being Ever Created, that was him to a T.

“S’no fun being mortal enemies with the ‘Knight of Fell’ when he’s been thoroughly trounced by a big wood stick, is it? Can’t have that sullying my reputation you know.” Aziraphale sputtered, outraged, insulted! Embarrassed at how accurate his observation utterly was. He detested their meetings as much as he was capable (which was a deeply pathetic amount of ‘not at all’).

“I might have won, you know. Been a real marker towards your status if I had.”

Crowley snorted. “Suppose you might’ve. Must be that ineffability and all that you didn’t have to find out, hm?”

Aziraphale took a rather large drink.

The worst part, besides knowing how right Crowley truly was, couldn’t even be pinned down to the quiet elation bubbling to the surface in his heart. The worst of it lied with the fact that he hadn’t _asked._ Crowley had shown up out of nowhere, yet again, not because he was told to, or because he’d thought to foil what Aziraphale was working on, but because he just _had._ This time, he’d even helped. Aziraphale developed an audience the following day due to his now impressive status and could likely have asked the moon of the townsfolk with all the rumours swirling wildly about. He could credit that particular aspect of the debacle to a temptation, worshipping a false god perhaps or a good old coveting or brown-nosing maybe, but he knew that wouldn’t quite explain all of it.

The thing was, Crowley had given him an out to not explaining it at all. Towards living in peaceful pretend enemy bliss while also facing no consequences from either respective employer, while still obtaining all the benefits and then some of his original plan. Infuriating, it was. Easy and simple, it always seemed to be as well.

He hadn’t thought to ask how Crowley had known where he was.

If he had, maybe he’d have heard tell of the way the demon had spent up nearly all his miracles for the week on transporting himself across two kingdoms just to get there in time. Maybe Crowley would have told him, in his casual throw away this-isn’t-a-big-deal-because-I’m-making-it-sound-as-though-I-want-a-compliment-but-_ironically_ sort of manner, that he’d been worried. That he’d gotten so twisted up over the thought of Aziraphale being discorporated and likely losing his assignment on earth, that he’d have done almost anything to ensure the sun never rose that morning.

Maybe he’d have pieced it together a little quicker, if he’d brought it up more thoroughly at any point. Then again, as the years passed, he’d thought that about many events and never seen the other side of things.

Oblivious and dithering, he supposed_ that_ was him to a T. It was also unfortunately what got him into trouble so often in the first place.

He might have asked, when Crowley appeared at the bottom of a sinking ship he’d been locked up in the cellars of (a mix up regarding Blackbeard and an unfortunate amount of gold, of course) had he been able to. Not that angels needed to breathe, but one tended to fall into the habit, and besides, it still had proven to be difficult to speak through all the layers of water and seaweed. He might have asked after, when Crowley miracle’d another friendly English boat carrying slightly confused fishermen nearby, conveniently with a ladder to help scoop the two of them aboard, had he not been forced to make sudden excuses and miracle a net of fish for the lot. He might even have asked afterwards, when Crowley coerced him into a friendly celebratory not-eaten-by-a-fish drink at the local tavern had Crowley not convinced the whole place to toast along with him for several hours.

He’d almost asked, in fact, when Crowley had shown up after a sudden and horrible case of mild poisoning the first time Aziraphale had joined a few business owners in the area for the new alcohol from overseas. He’d thought the name Moonshine to be delightful, although the taste was particularly repugnant. Aziraphale, despite his numbing tongue and the dizzying spinning vision (both clockwise and horizontally), _had_ managed to ask Crowley a series of increasingly personal questions while the serpent attempted to drag him across town and back to his book shop, however. He muzzily remembered asking if “he could grow his hair out long once more” because he found Crowley’s curls “particularly entrancing” and blacked out shortly after. Crowley had thought the whole thing hilarious after the strained look of panic around his lips finally straightened itself out.

The guillotine deal was something he preferred to forget. Or conveniently bury behind a pleasing memory of crepes, whichever seemed less telling.

Then there’d been the Nazi situation, with the books, and then suddenly everything seemed new. As though spun in a new hue, a fractal throwing light across an empty room. Something that had always been there but seemed different, brighter now. He’d entirely banished the thought of questioning anything, from that point onwards. Questioning tended to lead to cruel splashes of reality, after all, and living in a world where Crowley loved him, and he loved Crowley in return seemed a far too wonderful thing to wake up from. Not that he’d had the courage to act on it, then, or for many years later either.

Not, unfortunately for the pair of them, that the trouble Aziraphale stumbled into, decreased at any point either.

The Apoca-whoops-no-you-don’t aside, Aziraphale had stared down one too many rough ends of a gun in his time. Considering he’d existed long before the thought of ammunition had been created, the percentages of not-guns he’d been around also was unfortunately high. Either way, he’d grown a thick skin about the whole thing. Surprising, considering his lack of any experience with fatal wounds or the discorporation process post Rebellion.

There’d been countless ways he could have gone over the centuries. He’d assumed the debacle with the crepes would be high on the list for Crowley of the most hilariously pathetic ways to go (wrongly of course. On his own list he’d have placed that somewhere a tad lower, perhaps the incident with the armed guards and Crowley’s broken high heel would be above it). However, all in all, discorporation via mugging on his way home from dinner with Crowley was a particularly _embarrassing_ way to go, he’d have agreed.

“Now, now,” he said, attempting to keep his voice neutral despite the uncomfortable sensation of his trachea being pressed rather harshly against a rough stone wall by an intruding elbow. “Let’s discuss this, shall we? I’m sure there’s something we both would like best from this altercation. Namely a lack of bruising.”

The man growled, pressing harder. “I said, where do you keep the money, old man?”

“_Well,_ I never,” Aziraphale scoffed, oddly affronted despite the obvious truth to the words. Old, if only he knew. _Really._

It was a bit hard to think of anything truly malevolent towards the figure in front of him though, as he could feel the shake of his fingers without even meaning to. If he concentrated, he could feel the desperation running in jolts and tremors through his attackers heart, the way he was thinking of a young girl at home in a shabby apartment, the way he’d lost everything, the insurmountable hopelessness swirling behind all of that still. If he concentrated, he could pull this man’s story from his heart like fingerprints from a crime scene, like a song from a page.

Unfortunately, Aziraphale’s senses were clouded by a much stronger burning thought, something feeding endlessly towards him in bright flashes of warmth.

“Really? A dark alley with a gun? Here I was thinking humans were all about inspiringly twisted feats of creativity.” A familiar voice echoed towards them. Crowley. The bright flash burned impossibly taller and brighter; nothing had ever felt more like peace. Trachea situation aside.

“Do be gentle, dear,” Aziraphale levelled the demon with a pointed look, catching the roll of yellow eyes even behind the shades.

“Who the fuck are you?” The man whirled towards him, brandishing his gun with wild aim. To the man’s credit, his grip on Aziraphale’s lapel didn’t let up. Points for multitasking.

Crowley grinned, features stretching like a shark. With the streetlight behind him splashing sharp lines against his knife edged features, the whole picture gave off an impressively imposing aura. “This is your cue to run, human.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale admonished, but was cut off as the man slammed him against the rough stone wall once more. _Rude. _

“I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re on about, or if you’re just stupid, but this is a_ gun_. Take one step closer and someone’s getting a bullet in ‘em.”

Crowley arched an eyebrow. “Well, shit. Usually that one works right off the bat.” He flicked his gaze over to the angels with a sort of half shrug. “You saw that, I gave him a fair chance!” Aziraphale couldn’t really disagree, partly due to a lack of ability to, all things and elbows present.

And then abruptly, Crowley transformed into a snake mid step forwards, and lunged towards the man. His long slender form was practically a shadow in the dim light, lurching like an ink blot running down an empty canvas, and wrapping around the attackers legs in an instant.

“Holy _fu_-“ The man squeaked, and trailed off into a high pitched terrified noise that sent dogs ears standing upright for miles.

Aziraphale really wasn’t a fan of all this yelling. He was developing quite the headache.

“Dear,” he waved a hand vaguely and heard a disappointed hissing ‘_finnnnee’ _in response.

With another blink, Crowley was standing beside him, brushing off his suit jacket with mild derision. The man sat sprawled in the muck of the alleyway, unharmed at least. Crowley’s self restraint really was a marvel.

Aziraphale crouched beside him. “You have a daughter who is terribly worried about you. There will be a call tomorrow morning about a job offer, on the more legal side of things. Would be terribly rude of you not to be there to answer, hm?” The man gaped.

Crowley let out a long and painfully annoyed breath. “You’ll remember this all as an awful dream and take it as a sign of the consequences of being a right prick. How’s that?”

Aziraphale nodded with a happy smile. “Lovely. Now, my dear, what say you to a nice stroll?”

Crowley’s smile turned soft. “It would be a shame to waste all this adrenaline.”

Aziraphale’s heart leapt a happy skip, and the questions he should have asked faded into background buzz as Crowley filled him in on the current events of human misery. Something about a Myspace status bar and a scene phase or other, Aziraphale only nodded pleasantly.

It was practically perfect, the evening, the clear stars, the smile playing around Crowley’s lips. He’d later think that perhaps a demonic miracle or two ensured the pleasant breeze, the swans arriving at the pond, the gentle waft of music in the air. Or maybe not, maybe they’d just deserved something nice for once. Either way, it was entirely impossible for Aziraphale to do anything other than kiss him, that night. Entirely unthinkable that he should do anything other than slip his hands through Crowley’s feather soft hair, and feel hands tighten in return around his waist to draw him in closer. Entirely amazing, heartbreakingly beautifully amazing, to see the stunned awe in Crowley’s eyes afterwards. (Wherein, of course, he’d been helpless to do anything other than kiss him again. Soundly. For several extended minutes.)

The nice stroll turned into drinks at the bookshop, as Crowley seemed particularly unwilling to leave and Aziraphale particularly unwilling to let him. Nice drunken conversations were held regarding the invention of the pocketknife and Sweden in general among other things, and then suddenly Aziraphale was struck by the happiness in Crowley’s expression like he’d been made of a parenthesis needing to be closed and there was nothing else left for him to notice in all the world. He saw the way Crowley’s eyes crinkled, the way his teeth gleamed, and the easy sprawl of his legs across Aziraphale’s lap and the words had more or less fallen out in an uneven heap.

“How do you know when I need you, dear boy? How is it that you always come?”

Crowley, who’d been mid sentence, took a funny blink and stared at him as though he’d just suggested that maybe England should try out this whole electoral college business the States had conjured up.

“How do you mean?”

Aziraphale set his drink down and clasped his hands together uncertainly. He’d decided to be blunt, somewhere between inhabiting the dear fake psychic’s form and the white walls of heaven and the shrill demands therein, and he wasn’t sure if he was capable of setting that decision back down.

“It’s only that, you always have. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed, Crowley. There were plenty of awful goings on at the Bastille, and you surely had more to be thinking of with that whole knight business.” He raised a brow pointedly. “Were you aware that I’m the only angel in all of the years since Earth’s beginning, who has _never_ lost a corporation? I know you have, and I’ve heard about the paperwork of course, but I’ve not filled it out myself, even once. It’s entirely because you’ve never let me.”

Crowley looked away sharply and took a quick drink. “You’d be insufferable to deal with afterwards, and who knows if they’d have sent you back at all with all that nonsense Gabriel’s always on about. Bugger that he is, should send him a nice fruit basket for leaving you alone, really. Nice, as in filled entirely with rats.”

Aziraphale touched his shoulder. “Crowley.”

The demon flinched away, pulling his legs back. Aziraphale could practically see the walls forming and panicked. “I’ve never had anyone else, you know, rescue me. It’s only that I’m wondering how you always find me when I need you.”

Crowley looked strangely hurt by the words, a quiet sort of devastation creeping around his lips. “Of course I find you. You call for me, and you needed me, so I came.”

Aziraphale blinked. “I….. call?”

“You call, you know, like. You think about me and you’re just that touch of in trouble, and it’s there, just in the center of my chest like a post-it note. Course, I keep tabs and all but.” Crowley shrugged, his usual defensive move for when he could sense Aziraphale was about to experience a softer emotion or dare to utter the words ‘thank you’.

“Can’t really do this without you, angel.” Aziraphale felt very much like crying suddenly, he reached for Crowley’s hand and felt tears prick at his eyes in relief when Crowley let him. He pressed Crowley’s knuckles to his lips frantically, pressing words he couldn’t think to the bones and veins underneath, sending them to his demon’s heart like a postcard.

“Crowley, I…. I don’t quite understand, my dear.”

The demon finally looked up at him, through his lashes in a shockingly bashful way. Then his brows drew tight. “Do you…. Do you not feel it? It’s that thrum, you know? Kind of like the one in heaven, if I remember right. The harmony and whatnot, so you can all feel the heavenly host at once or whatever it is they say.”

Aziraphale was about to answer that he had no idea what Crowley meant of course, but then he thought of the warmth. The easy familiarity, the lack of surprise at Crowley’s arrival. The way he’d always sort of felt calm even when facing imminent discorporation or lectures, as though he was waiting for something. The way Crowley’s voice rang in him like a sigh. Like an ‘oh, there you are’.

He pinched his lips closed tightly, and felt his eyes sting ferociously. He placed Crowley’s hand down, with an awkward unthinking pat and stared at Crowley helplessly.

“Oh, angel._ Oh._ You do, of course you do.” And Crowley was reaching, pressing a kiss to his temple, pushing a hand through the curls by his ear. “Shush, none of that, come on.” He sighed against the top of Aziraphale’s head. “You’re probably the only one up there who feels all of it, I’d wager. Gabriel sure isn’t up there bleeding with empathy, right? It’s not a big deal, I just. Probably am more paranoid or something.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale sniffed, grateful for the way out of his impending spiralling thoughts. He felt a bit like being tossed into a broiling sea. He couldn’t differentiate the rolling waves from the sky. It wasn’t as though he was terrifically upset at the notion, Crowley was right after all (he certainly cared more than a particular unnamed archangel and his colleagues), it was only that it was quite an unfortunate amount to process, all in all.

“I…. I think perhaps that I’ll sober up. Head to bed, and all.”

Crowley leaned back, blinked his sunglasses back on with a wave. “Right. Yeah, me too.” 

Aziraphale focused, felt the alcohol in his blood stream leave with an all at once uncomfortable familiarity, and hesitated. He didn’t like the careful way Crowley’s shoulders sat, the tense forced-casual thinness of his lips. “Crowley?”

An arched eyebrow met him, but Aziraphale could tell even behind the shades that his gaze was trained elsewhere. “Mm?”

Aziraphale leaned forward and snatched Crowley’s empty glass and kissed him gently. “I know you hate to hear it, but. Thank you, you old serpent,” he managed a gentle smile, entirely genuine and brimming with impossibly boundless genuine love. Then, he froze. A terrible, awful thought bubbling to the surface in the otherwise perfect evening they’d concocted.

“What about… 1941? In the church? You’d been sleeping an awful long time, I’m pretty sure I hadn’t expected you at all, then.”

Crowley exhaled long and slow, his long fingers tapped against his empty glass. “No, yeah. Absolutely, right. Um.” He sighed and tilted his head back. Aziraphale pretended not to be drawn in by the long column of his neck, the tilt of his mouth. Distractions were Crowley’s _thing, _to be fair. “Didn’t get the post-it note that time, just sort of. Woke up. Felt you were in trouble or. Would be.”

Aziraphale turned the words over in his head, a terrible sinking feeling was beginning to formulate near the gaps in between them. “Crowley?”

Crowley hunched his shoulders in. “Yeah?”

“If…. If you could tell I was in trouble… if every time you could tell, even when I wasn’t thinking of you…. Well, it’s only that. I’d think of the others, then. Sometimes I’d think about them very strongly.”

Crowley’s mouth opened, a perfectly round ‘o’ of dawning realization. Aziraphale turned away sharply and fussed with his own glass. “It’s nothing, obviously. Best head to bed. Goodnight, dear.”

“Angel-“

Crowley’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, Aziraphale busied off towards the kitchen before he could work out the words. It was best for both of them if he didn’t.

It wasn’t as though Aziraphale needed any of them, the heavenly host and all. Well, it wasn’t as though he_ didn’t_ need them either. Ethereal-ness was all about connections and interlocking ties, much like human bureaucracy (something he was positive a few of the more politically thinking scholars he’d had the pleasure and displeasure of meeting over the years were absolutely horrified or pleased to discover). His connection to them had always been a tad strained, particularly since his Earth assignment, but it was like a constant buzz nonetheless. Like a background you never noticed until someone pointed it out, or until it stopped.

He knew what it was, now that Crowley had made him aware of it. A one note hum under his skin, behind his eyes, under his tongue. It had always been the same, since the beginning. Except for when it hadn’t, when it had changed tunes somewhere around the Metatron incident, or perhaps just before.

Aziraphale had realized it the following morning after Crowley had slunk off. The sucker punch swoop right before the actual sucker punch to the gut, a bit like a burning rose in an empty field, a flash of lightning. It had been a momentary lapse in the single tune hymn, a blip of anger in his tie to the host, an emotion no one Upstairs had ever needed to feel, not since the Rebellion days. Yet they’d felt it for only a moment, then.

Again, later, too at the actual Apocalypse averting. He’d assumed he’d had a bad salad or found the nearly shooting a child business a pinch too distressing, but there it had been. A radiating twist of the gut, like disgust perhaps. An anxiety, a frustration. Then, at Crowley’s trial he’d assumed he’d developed a bad case of nerves, only it felt too strongly of something darker. Angrier. Revulsion, it had been hatred and revulsion. All of it, all of these emotions Gabriel and Michael had never truly felt before, all of it directed at him and looping through the Host like a bad feedback system.

He’d been feeling their momentary lapses in calm righteousness, just in those moments. It had never shifted from the low-grade buzz for six thousand years because everything had always gone according to plan, but they’d felt a smidgeon of emotion and so too had Aziraphale. Which meant…

Well. It meant a lot of things, namely therapy for the lot of them, perhaps. Mostly, it meant that they’d all been, for all this time and for all these years, been feeling muted forms of his distress as well.

When he’d nearly drowned in the back of a cell, when he’d fretted himself into fevers over being ‘good enough’, when he’d nearly burned to a crisp in the fires of London, when he’d stared down a gun in that church in 1941. They’d known, they’d felt it just as Crowley had, and they’d turned the other way.

He shouldn’t have cared, really. Especially not now after they’d unanimously sent him into extinction without so much as a trial or an apology. It wasn’t as though he _liked _Sandalphon by any stretch of the word, but it was the principle of the thing. When Aziraphale had nearly gone catatonic after the whole first borns in Egypt debacle, and become debilitated by grief and self doubt during the Bubonic Plagues, they’d all felt it. They’d all likely gathered together and mocked him for it, and he’d never known, and they never so much as lifted a finger to help.

He didn’t like any of them, sure, but he’d spent millennia trying to (and twice as long trying to get them to like him back). Receiving first-hand confirmation that he’d been set up to fail from the start, that all his successes were just a check on a blank list, that they could have forgotten him entirely on Earth for all he mattered to them. It stung.

_No_, he refused to let it sting. Wouldn’t want to send that up on the airwaves for them to mock.

Only, trying to not feel was apparently yet another on a long list of his personal failings; every bottle he stoppered and placed on a shelf burst free moments later and he seemed incapable of avoiding _thinking _which kept making the whole thing more disastrous. He’d always sort of assumed feeling was a heavenly thing, that empathy was a direct gift from Her and the demonic lot was the sort who was meant for stoic indifference. Foolish, really, considering all that Crowley was.

_Ah,_ and there was the kicker.

He tried to make a cup of tea, tried to find it in him to open the shop and plaster on a smile, but bless it. These pesky emotions kept swirling up inside him, and it took all his focus to try and stomp them out before they climbed up too high in his throat. If they reached his eyes there’d be no stopping them, he rationalized. He didn’t know how Crowley did it, feeling all the things all the time and hiding them up behind those two dark lenses.

There was a fundamental difference, it seemed, between knowing you were uncared for by the majority of colleagues you encountered and _knowing_ they would look the other way and see you discorporated with mild derision at the most. _And to think, all this had gone on much longer than any of my recent rule breaking, longer than the Arrangement, even. Back when I’d been a perfectly upstanding Principality as well, if the non-corporeal leg injury incident during the Fall was anything to go by. _No, those were dangerous thoughts. Must be nipped before they dared turn into moping, or worse, self-pity. Gabriel would likely have a field day now, with an iota of guilt or low self esteem.

_Oh,_ Aziraphale thought with a sad slump, dropping his tea bag into his cup with a quiet plunk. Gabriel would have felt it, with the ‘lost the gut’ incident. He would have known that it. That Aziraphale had. He might have even said it on purpose.

Angels didn’t do vicious bouts of mean-spirited insults, did they? He’d thought not, but then again, he’d also thought them to be above the whole ‘destroying mankind’ bit and they’d proved him wrong a few times over at this point. Not to mention Crowley had said he’d been rather forceful about the holy fire debacle. So much for divine forgiveness and turning the other cheek. So much for harmonious brotherhood or caring for thy neighbor, too. Not much caring going on when Aziraphale had nearly scorched his feathers off in the fires of London, or when he’d been nearly trapped in a cave-in during the world war.

Sandalphon had probably made some sort of clever quip about the nauseating panic and despair of the whole thing. Something equally nauseating and despair inducing no doubt. War without war, as such. _Awful._

He’d known he didn’t really fit with the others, always full to the brim with far too many concerns and fears and big ideas head office didn’t seem to find half as intriguing. He’d always indulged too much in Earthly delights, always dithered too long, reacted too strongly, (always needed to double check, find a different way around things, a less dangerous way). Most traits had been cultivated with time on Earth, with Crowley, with humans in general. Only, he couldn’t recall when they’d formulated from indifference into outright revulsion. He couldn’t pinpoint when he’d gone wrong, when he’d become something unlovable.

He’d had to stopper that thought up with vicious ferocity. Placed a heavy boulder on top of it and chucked it as far back in his heart as he dared. Threw a wad of duct tape across it, just to be careful. (He’d heard about duct tape years ago, marvelous invention really. Could seal up holes on spaceships, he’d heard. Could add ‘angelic emotion sealant’ to that impressive resume now as well, hopefully.)

That was a dangerous thought, a vulnerable thought. He wouldn’t dare let Gabriel sniff it out and spread it out for everyone to see. He’d just have to busy himself, keep a distraction until it faded a little. Until it all stung less. Then he’d invite Crowley over and complain in the sort of lighthearted way that really unearthed nothing at all in him, allow Crowley to fuss and yell and growl on his behalf. It was safer that way, with all his feelings tucked inside Crowley’s heart instead where they could be loud and vivid and perfectly kept just between the two of them. He’d just stay busy until then, dust the shelves a tad. Perhaps attempt to actually allow a customer or two inside the building for longer than a half hour at 4pm. Give some good cheer to the Soho residents after the month’s events.

Not that they remembered any of it, of course. Adam only knew how grateful Aziraphale was for the easy remedy of human rationalization.

Perhaps in all his stoppering he’d gone a little haywire, however. (Duct tape, proven to be spiritually powerful. Capable of shutting down wandering ethereal thoughts! Purchase yours at your earliest convenience.)

The days blurred past in a whirlwind of purposeful activities; little errands here and there, trying out tiny cafés when possible, never to be alone with his thoughts too long so books were out of the question. He’d gone somewhat automatic, probably. Outright ignored Crowley’s incoming phone call even, for the sake of _speaking_ with a _customer. _The messages he’d left had started out nearly amusingly confused. Aziraphale had a general rule about answering a phone properly- he’d only allowed Crowley to explain what an answering machine was after he’d told him the tale of trapping Hastur in one (a demon trapping device had seemed fairly enticing, at the time).

_“Uh, hi. Aziraphale, it’s. It’s Crowley- why didn’t you tell me you were recording your answering machine message when I… ngk. You’re supposed to say to leave a message and you’ll, well. Guess that’s the point, innit. Huh, clever bastard. Never mind, just. Give me a ring back, yeah?” _

(Said message was recorded midst drunken Crowley rant, and caught an awful lot of his typical half finished sentences and unnecessary sound effects with a cheerfully and equally as drunken ‘the shop shan’t be opening in time for your call, I’m afraid! Toodle-oo!’ from Aziraphale. He’d meant to delete it but found it on the whole very effective for discouraging any actual inquiries left via answering machine, however embarrassing it may be.)

The ensuing messages became noticeably less comedic as the days passed onwards, however.

_“Angel, pick up, will you? Just heard there’s a new Thai shop opening near my flat, and I know how you like that sauce. Haven’t had Thai in a while, right? Let me know when to stop over.” _

_“Aziraphale, you’re just ignoring me at this point why do I even- look, pick up. You don’t have caller ID, how’d you know you’re not ignoring a very important caller right now with a very important book? Ngh. Fine. Ciao.” _

_“I may have stumbled across an important book, actually. On accident, course. Happened to tempt it from a right prick’s early retirement gift- excellent story there, that one. Give me a ring back so I can pop it over?” _

_“Angel…. [sigh], yeah. Don’t know what I was expecting.”_

Aziraphale, in some sort of stupor or out of body experience, had even invested in one of those electronic opening signs and hung it up out of the blue. (He hadn’t the proper wiring to sort out the actual lighting up business, but he’d expected it to work nicely and it had. The young man who’d helped him pick out the item across the way decided he’d stayed up too late and head to bed shortly after.)

When Crowley burst through the doors that same day after switching the strange thing on, it had been a bit of a shock but not entirely unfair.

“Oh! My dear!” He’d said, a little blankly, with his first edition Mark Twain still held as though to pass it off to the young bored woman in front of him.

“What.” Crowley enunciated. “Are you doing.”

Aziraphale blinked, and then blinked again down towards his hands. Then gasped and abruptly pulled the book back, “I should think nearly losing my head!” He exclaimed, perhaps a tad too offended considering he had offered the sale to begin with. The lady echoed his offense but was smart to snap her mouth closed and hurry out when Crowley dropped his shades.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said, hand over his racing heart. “Once again you have swooped to my rescue.”

This was the point Crowley would typically snap back with an insult, or a non too subtle reminder that demons categorically do not receive thanks for being right arseholes. Instead, Crowley silently stalked off.

Aziraphale had grown accustomed to Crowley’s odd quirks. His habit of circling, his dramatism, the hissing and the secret love of plants, all in good time and, if he were a certain inhuman level of drunk, rather adorable. In all Aziraphale’s tomes of knowledge on the demon, though, he’d never known him to be particularly silent. Even when angry, Crowley was the type to ensure you knew he was angry. Perhaps not with words, but with loud sighs, tapping, shifting, fiddling and refiddling; Crowley wanted you to know he was suffering but very much Still Present. This Crowley was something else.

This Crowley silently shoved the last customer out of the shoppe with a glare, flipped over the sign and bolted the door with a snap. This Crowley was thinly pressed lips, sharp angles, and drawn eyebrows. This Crowley was staring and staring_ hard._

“Erm. Are you alright, Crowley?” Aziraphale ventured, weakly.

“Am I.” Crowley took a single step forward, his shoulders still tense and drawn upwards. “Alright.”

Aziraphale really didn’t know where to go with that. “Yes?”

“You’ve ignored me ringing you.”

Aziraphale managed a frown. “Hardly the first time.”

“You nearly sold. A book.”

“This_ is_ a book shoppe, my dear. Not impossible.” (Deeply horrifying and unsettling, yes. Impossible, _well_. He had sold a copy of The Black Stallion once in 2007. Regretted it instantaneously after the customer walked through the door and promptly decided to utilize the Arrangement to ensure the book would conveniently find its way into the lost and found across the street at the exact time Aziraphale usually stepped in for a biscuit.)

“You haven’t dined out in two weeks.”

“I’ve been on a café kick; they really are rather quaint you know.”

Crowley arched a brow. It seemed angry all on its own somehow. “You bought an open sign. With proper hours and everything. Are you _trying_ to make a bloody business?”

Aziraphale certainly did not pout at that (just something extremely visually similar).“Whatever I’ve done to upset you so, let’s talk it out, shall we? I have a nice red over in-“

Crowley cut him off, stepping forwards until they were practically nose to nose, Aziraphale instinctively stepped backwards and was met with the sharp angles of a bookshelf behind him.

“Upsssset me?” Crowley hissed. Aziraphale held his breath on principle more than necessity. Crowley rarely hissed at him, unless drunk. He hadn’t even hissed during their St. James Pond debacle. _Oh dear, _Aziraphale thought, blankly.

Crowley ripped his shades off with one fluid motion, and threw them behind him without a glance, his yellow eyes trained only on Aziraphale’s. The angel had expected fury, maybe, though he didn’t know the reason. Perhaps disappointment, based on his tone. He felt a bit as though the floor had vanished beneath them when instead he was met with heavy concern and _fear._

“Angel, what’s wrong?” Crowley’s voice broke, Aziraphale’s heart chipped along with it. His hands rose, fluttering near Crowley’s shoulders, his chest. Wanting to comfort but feeling incredibly, helplessly lost.

“Wrong? Whatever do you mean?”

Crowley’s expression flickered, like he was unable to keep back a snippet of crumpling hurt at the words. Aziraphale wanted to chuck himself into the darkest, dampest corner of the storage room at the sight.

“You nearly _sold_ a _book_,” Crowley’s tone was pleading, his hands rose to gently squeeze Aziraphale’s arms.

“Ah, as you’ve. As you’ve said, but. Well, I mean you intervened at an excellent time, might I add, really impeccable timing and-“

“Aziraphale.”

“Nothing’s wrong! It’s fine, I’m perfectly fine. I appreciate your concern, Crowley, but there’s nothing. There_ can’t_ be anything, so really-“

“What d’you mean_, can’t_ be?” Crowley’s eyes were searching now, flickering back and forth like he could read the manual of Aziraphale’s expression for the crucial part he’d overlooked. He was scarily good at that, actually. Aziraphale looked away, a last ditch effort to keep everything nice and quietly stuffed into the pocket dimension of his mind.

“You really must stop interrupting me, Crowley.” Aziraphale huffed, weakly. “It was a slip of the tongue, it’s nothing. Must be the stress you know, finally shaking me up or what have you. Nice cup of tea will put me right as rain.”

Crowley groaned in frustration and dropped his head. His hands tensed against Aziraphale’s arms and went soft, an entire sentence written in the bone whites of his knuckles falling silent. “Right. You don’t want to talk to me, yeah? Okay. Just, don’t I at least get to apologize?”

Aziraphale was beginning to feel, around the empty thing spreading outwards between his third and fourth rib, like he was the one falling behind and missing cues in their conversation. “Apologize? Dear boy, whatever for?”

“For whatever’s done this to you! You’re all,” he leaned back, gestured vaguely at the whole of the angel. “Empty. It’s not right. Was it, did I mess it up? The uh, the kissing or? ....so. Let me fix it._ Please_, angel.” Crowley’s expression was an artwork in self doubt and utter misery, it made something instinctively protective ignite in his chest. Oh, he’d made a mess of this. Between the sharp angles of Crowley’s posture and the wrecked fear of his eyes, Aziraphale truly could have walked into holy fire if Crowley had asked him to (even if he hadn’t asked, actually).

“The…. The kissing? Heavens, dear, no I….” Aziraphale felt the words like he’d jumped into a frozen lake, like he’d been tipped over and set to freefall. Not Fall, exactly, but something with the same reeling fear and panic. If he could just have a second, just a moment to… to stopper, to box it up, to compartmentalize. Crowley made a quiet sound, just barely a huff of air but with so much shattering relief, his knees nearly wobbled. _Oh, fuck it_, he thought, just as miserably.

“Shouldn’t I be?” He hated how small his voice sounded, viscerally hated it. “All the other angels are brimming with nothing, practically in the job description.”

“Since when do you care what the other angels are up to?” Crowley frowned at him, tilting his head back to stare at him with such raw confusion it was nearly overwhelming.

Aziraphale sighed now, a high reedy noise. A balloon with a puncture wound bleeding air. The pocket dimension shuddered somewhere in the back corners of his brain, like a collapsing star. His skin felt hot, supernovas imploding from the inside out at the absolute hurt and guilt in Crowley’s eyes. _Oh, but this was all entirely unfair wasn’t it?_

“Since _always, Crowley!_ Only, it didn’t matter before if I cared. Didn’t much change things if I were bloody pouring over with caring. Now, though. Now I know they’ve been piling up on all these pieces of all the caring I’ve been doing, and probably having a laugh over it. I can’t be empty, Crowley, I can’t._ And they’ve known that the whole blessed time.”_

Well, now he’d gone and spoiled all of it, hadn’t he? The stopper had been firmly unstoppered. In front of the one person he’d been desperately hoping to maintain some semblance of rationality and poise. The one person he hadn’t wanted to look afraid in front of, lest he burn those awful ideas about inferiority he knew Crowley already kept far too close to his heart even deeper. (He’d wanted to seem sure, to be confident; he’d wanted to sew up all the tears and rends he’d made with his ‘not yet’s’ and ‘no thank you’s’ over the years. Once again of course, not realizing a lack of empathy was entirely not the correct option at all.)

Crowley looked stunned, shocked. Whatever speech he’d been preparing had been firmly erased evidently. The perfect opportunity for Aziraphale’s foolish brain to plow onwards, nearly untethered by the frantic need to remove some of the fuzzy static clogging his lungs, prickling against his skin from underneath.

“Every time I’d ever been unsettled, concerned, scared. Every time I’d nearly faced discorporation, or worse. They’ve felt all of it. _You_ felt all of it. And I had no inkling of an idea, all this time!”

Crowley growled, shaking him subtly and pushing him closer into the shelves like trapped prey (like desperation, more realistically. Like he was scared, poor dear).

“I’m glad I did, angel! So I knew you were in trouble, so I could help!” Crowley broke in, some of his usual fire beginning to seep back through the edges. Aziraphale couldn’t handle that, presently. Crowley’s easy dismissal of any self doubt or depreciation, his stout refusal to allow Aziraphale to feel any amount of regret about himself was immensely endearing, nearly devastating when the angel let himself think on the expanding infinites of Crowley’s capability to love, but he couldn’t. Not right now, not when he was packed to the brim with shame and embarrassment and a need to erase himself for a while just for a moment _to think._

He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his fist, fought with everything in him just to stop up the building inferno in his stomach, to breathe around it without igniting it and just pack it all away. Crowley didn’t need to understand the depths of his ineptitude, how deeply he was detested amongst his own kind from the start even before any of his rebelling and fraternizing, how there’d always been something _not right about him_. Crowley didn’t need to know how unlovable he was. Aziraphale was terrified of him knowing, of him knowing and agreeing.

“I heard you every time, Aziraphale, and I always came running! If I hadn’t-“

_“So why didn’t they?” _Aziraphale bit out, hating and hating and hating his weakness so intensely it burned.

Silence fell as thickly as the dust lining his shelves. Aziraphale felt Crowley’s hands fall away from his arms like a flinch, pictured the sounds of quiet footsteps, of the bell over the door quietly ringing an epitaph of goodbyes. Dramatic as always, cowardly as ever but he couldn’t bear to see it, so he kept his eyes closed.

He fought back a sob, tooth and nail and every muscle and atom in him. He would not cry, he wouldn’t. “Why didn’t they? Why did you, when you never had to?”

Crowley’s hand touched his chin, a thumb smoothing across the bow of his lower lip. “I… Aziraphale, you. You deserved better. M’sorry they were never that.” Aziraphale shuddered, a sob maybe. A shiver, perhaps. “I came then, and. Always will, really. I will, I _have._ _I did_, angel, because I loved you then, too. Always done.”

Aziraphale couldn’t have helped the way his eyes opened, the way his helpless heart reached out like it had never been made for anything else. “You….you have?”

His yellow eyes were so soft, so achingly sweet, he’d never seen Crowley look so carved out, as if moments from collapsing or hiding away. “Thought you would have felt it,” he shrugged, helplessly, like he had nothing left to stake a claim on. No pride left to hide behind. _My darling, my wonderful, incredible Crowley. You have me, you’ve always had me. Have I mucked that up, too?_

Aziraphale concentrated, then; caught that familiar warm flicker of light and wrapped it around his fingers. He knew it, had known it. Perhaps been afraid to name it, tried to place it amongst all his other stoppered things but it had inevitably ran loose as well.

“Crowley,” he all but whispered, fondly. Reverently. “I’ve only ever felt _you._” Then he leaned forwards and pressed his lips to the love of his life’s small, fragile frown until it softened. “I do love you, my Crowley. I love you so completely I fear... I must not had room to feel yours back. I love you; I _love_ you Anthony J Crowley. Although, I’m afraid I haven’t done a good job of it.” 

“Ssstop that,” Crowley managed. “You’re the only one who’s ever done it right.” And kissed him again, long and soft and slow, and utterly perfect.

There’d be no chance in hell of any of this being stoppered, now. No container big enough to hold it all in, anyways, if he even thought to try. Loving Crowley had never been anything he’d been much good at slowing down, anyways.

Crowley, to his surprise, leaned away first. His hands rose to cradle Aziraphale’s face between them immediately after, like a balm, like a benediction.

“So, you’ll stop this then, yeah? The nothing thing. I. It’s awful, not feeling you. Like. It’s. I can’t do it, this hole in the center of me. Too used to you being there, maybe.” His cheeks were pink, gaze flickering nervously back and forth. Aziraphale’s whole heart warmed and melted, the frantic static spilling far away along with it.

Aziraphale _loved_ him.

He thought about Gabriel, surrounded by boundless white walls and suits and the burning pit of disgust constantly in him, thick like a sludge just under his heart. He thought of Michael, prim and properly angered in all the righteous ways he’d thought angels ought to be. He thought of the lot of them, receiving this cresting wave of absolute adoration, even muted and strained, the sudden burst of a new chord to the mindless hum, something they’d have no words for themselves.

He smiled, pressed his lips to Crowley’s brow.

“Anything for you. The stars if you asked; anything.”

Crowley lit up like the sun, as much as he was able. To Aziraphale it was the whole universe. “Keep the stars there, yeah? Worked hard on those.”

Aziraphale smiled, Crowley’s crooked one in return melted against his lips.

There was nothing more than love and nothing less, no way to crawl around it or hide it underneath layers of words without it peaking through. There was also something so constant about it, no way to think of it in the grand encompassing way it was, only in packaged bits and moments. Only in long stretches of warmth pressed sleepily along his back, only in the careless arm thrown across his hip, only in the gentle murmurs and puffs of slow breath against the nape of his neck. Oh, he loved and he loved, and he was loved, and had been loved and impossibly, blessedly, would be loved.

Let Gabriel feel this, let him feel one fraction of this undefinable indefinite this. He’d have no place for even a miniscule amount, he would never understand it but he’d broil inside with the desire to categorize, to dismiss. Aziraphale would only love harder.

It wasn’t often that Aziraphale fell into the embrace of sleep, hadn’t found it needed or comforting until he’d discovered the way Crowley’s limbs wrapped tight and coiled in slumber. Like every inch of Crowley wanted and needed, in sleep he was so open. It was beautiful, it was a gift Aziraphale treasured amongst all his other cherished Crowley-isms.

He’d been sleeping, this night. Vague depictions of warmth and sweet yellow eyes, and a feeling of finding home. At first, he wasn’t sure what had awoken him. As if a dinner had sat unwell within him, as if he could experience heartburn. An unpleasant twist near the gut, a pinching burn like a brimstone, or an ember.

Disgust, again. Or perhaps anger. Jealousy was a sin, so surely not.

He could feel it, the backlash for his radiating love; the equivalent of a warm rock in a roaring stream. That’s all their revenge amounted to, he realized. All those years of fearing and yearning, and this was the resplendent comeuppance. It was almost sad.

“My dear,” he whispered, rolling over and trailing a knuckle across Crowley’s sleep slackened features.

“Mnng,” Crowley said.

“I apologize for waking you, I. I had a thought.” Crowley’s brows squeezed tight, a flash of yellow cracking through bleary eyelids. Aziraphale kissed his nose, a gentle encouragement and a penance he’d happily pay.

“What’ssssssit?” He grumbled.

“It’s just that. If…. If you felt me, all those times…. I only wondered if you could feel this, as well?” The awful burning went bleak and cold, a twist of righteousness without the righteous.

Crowley sighed, frowned, and fell silent. “Mmmnope,” he said, popping the ‘p’ sound petulantly. “Gettin’ a whole lot of empty nothing, besides you.”

Aziraphale huffed. “You…. You don’t sense that? The… the anger? Disgust? From Upstairs?”

Crowley threw an arm across his eyes. “Ugh. Glad I don’t.”

“Thought you might sense all of the um, the host, since. Well, you know. If…. If I can feel this, it makes sense, that is.”

Crowley yawned, and pushed his face against Aziraphale’s neck, wiggling closer and pulling the angel inwards as well. He breathed long and slow, sleepy happiness. He was warm, like this. Sleep dazed and heat seeking. Aziraphale’s heart sang. “Only ever felt you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. He thought about the way Crowley had burst into the church, despite the blisters and burns they’d discovered on his feet later. He thought about the forced nonchalance as he’d passed over the bag of books. Crowley’s smile at him, Crowley’s eyes on him and only him, despite Shakespeare, despite the gallows, despite everything else nearby.

He breathed in, nose buried against Crowley’s hair, feeling the slow easy way he fell back asleep with his head leaned against Aziraphale’s chest, tucked under his chin. He willed rest into Crowley’s mind, pushed his hand through the short hair at Crowley’s nape, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out once again to taizi for the general conceptualization of this fic and also for the encouragement. Wouldn't have been able to ramble incessantly about good omens without them, and honestly? Endlessly grateful.


End file.
